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The U.S. Navy will delay release of the final request for proposals (RfP) for the Next Generation Enterprise Network (NGEN) by about a month, but does not expect the delay to affect the overall schedule, which calls for awarding a contract or contracts in December.
A delay of about a month will allow for additional industry input on changes the Navy has made to the draft RFP, said Steven Davis, a spokesman for the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command.
The NGEN contract or contracts are scheduled to be awarded in December, with the new network slated to take over from the Navy-Marine Corps Intranet (NMCI) at midnight April 30, 2014.
“At this time, there is no anticipated change to the overall program schedule for contract award and transition of the network,” Davis said.
The philosophy of the NGEN program is to welcome as much industry input as possible up front to ultimately lead to a better final RFP, Davis said.
Sections “L” (instructions, conditions and notices to offerors) and “M” (evaluation ratings) were updated in response to internal reviews and comments from industry. The two sections were re-released in mid-December for additional industry comments in order to provide more clarity for the two sections in the final RfP.
“Sections L and M are considered significant by industry since these sections provide the detailed instructions to prospective offerors on how to construct their respective proposals, the thresholds to be considered acceptable, and the evaluation factors for submissions,” Davis said.
The draft RFP for NGEN was released in September by the Naval Enterprise Networks Program Management Office for industry comment ahead of the final RfP. The final RFP, originally slated for release Dec. 21, is now expected by the end of January.
The NGEN program has received considerable criticism from outside parties, such as the Government Accountability Office and House Appropriations Committee, for an unorthodox approach that would potentially divide the work among multiple contractors. The Navy originally intended to divide the NGEN acquisition into five segments, which would result in the Navy serving as the integrator and manager of the program. In August, the Navy scaled the number of segments back to two, although it remains uncertain whether one or two contracts will be awarded. If both segments are awarded to a single contractor, the contractor will integrate the subcontractors. If two contracts are awarded, the Navy will serve as the integrator for NGEN.
This story appears in the January-February issue of C4ISR Journal.
